


Under Heaven, Over Hell

by Markala



Series: The (Fantastic) Kitchen Sinkhole 'Verse [1]
Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Academy Era, Adventure & Romance, Aliens, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dating, F/M, Friendship, Lovers to Friends, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Male-Female Friendship, Multi, Mystery, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pre-Series, Science Fiction, Starfleet Academy, Supernatural Elements, Urban Fantasy, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 08:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11894310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Markala/pseuds/Markala
Summary: In which one Julian Subatoi Bashir searches for something long-lost, has strange dreams, and fiddles with cosmic forces of infinite measure while studying to be a Starfleet Doctor Who Helps People™ (who just so happens to have a penchant for sticking his nose into every supernatural mystery he can find); and Palis Delon doesn't much like thinking on what lies ahead.[ WHY WON'T YOUL E A V E? ]





	Under Heaven, Over Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first date after the Incident™ began with bribery at 2 A.M.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, here is my first DS9 thing ever, it’s for an AU I made called ‘The (Fantastic) Kitchen Sinkhole’ and set pre-DS9 series. Think Urban Fantasy meets more Occult-ish, kinda horror plus all the sci-fi stuff. This drabble started out a lot more funny, then I whacked it with the angst-bat a few times, woo.

It started just how nearly all of their dates began-

_  
“Palis.”_

  
“Mghfrm…”

  
_“Pallllliisss?”_

  
That voice again, what-?

  
“Palis, wake up.”

  
Green eyes snapped open and took one look before their owner sighed, “Julian it’s two in the morning.”

  
“There’s a graveyard in Prague we simply must investigate,” he spoke brightly with this, infuriatingly cute tone that made Palis want to smother one Julian Subatoi Bashir with a pillow at the moment.

  
“You have _exams_ in the morning,” Palis retorted, leveling a humorless gaze at her boyfriend.

  
“Already studied,” was he preening?! “And they’re not ‘til noon.”

  
“I have _practice_ ,” Palis refuted drowsily, turning over, snuggling back into the covers.

  
“It’ll be quick,” one of Julian hands came to rest on Palis’s upper arm in gentle entreaty, “I promise.”

  
“That’s what you said that last time,” Palis groused, shrugging him off, “and the time before that, and the time before _that,_ ” a yawn punctuated her response, “bother me on the weekend.”

  
“But tonight has the perfect conditions!”

 _  
‘Don’t look at the puppy, don’t look at the puppy,’_ Palis chanted silently to herself, if she didn’t look at him he couldn’t get her with that stupid puppy-ness that she knew was probably one of the least-faked things about her boyfriend, before a sarcastic, “yeah, the perfect conditions to finally get arrested for trespassing on private or historically significant property,” found its way past her lips.

  
Palis was usually more lady-like than this;  _'too damn early,'_ she reasoned, her brain-to-mouth filter was garbage by this hour.

  
She didn’t need to see Julian’s face to sense the shift of his features from entreating to smug, “well, you’re obviously awake now, you’re using four-syllable words and everything.”

  
And with that, Palis relents as she turned back over to face her dumb, smartperson boyfriend kneeling next to her bed, shooting him with a glare that could melt neutronium.

  
But with that sign of Palis' acquiescence, Julian practically vibrated with excitement, hands fluttering every which way, “yes well, I have a new _lead_ , from a reliable source this time-”

  
Palis shot up from bed, turning her body and folding her legs to face Julian, her eyes wide and hands gripping the young man’s shoulders, hard, “did you mess with the Ouija board again?! Without me?! Are you _trying_ to get possessed again? What the flying fuck Julian?!”

The three-point-seven seconds of silence and direct-eye contact that followed was uncomfortable for both of them.

  
“Generally speaking Palis,” Julian then said, far-too-breezily despite the soft lilt of sadness that entered his voice, “I think we handled that unpleasantness rather handily the last time.”

  
“Julian, don’t bullshit me, I know your more possession-resistant than I am,” Palis patted at his shoulders awkwardly before turning away from his hazel gaze, “and better at processing things…”

  
The young woman pretended that the quirk of tension that appeared in Julian’s shoulders went unnoticed, like she always did, and soldiered on, “but next time we might not be so lucky, those guys weren’t experts, and they paid for that pride with their lives-”

  
“-And nobody knowing they existed but us,” Julian interrupted unhelpfully, “I know.”

  
A wry quirk of her lips, “yeah, that,” as she took her hands back, folds them almost primly in her lap, “but it’s worrisome, we’ve never seen organized poltergeists or whatever-they-were before…”

  
“So we educate ourselves! Prepare for anything and everything!” Julian declared passionately, “I’ve been cross-referencing those sigils we found in that book? It was rather old, and well, it’s more of a tome really, and historically-”

 _  
‘There’s that fire,’_ Palis thought with an amused softness she can’t remember ever affording anybody, her eyes drawn to the braids of dried grasses glued beneath the sills of her windows as Julian babbled on, excitement shining on his caramel features in the lowest light setting of a flashlight he must’ve brought with him, the heavy, club-like one with multiple features that Palis had insisted on him acquiring after that time in the woods.

  
Palis resisted a shudder at the memory, and watched as the shadows shifted across Julian’s face, the tension drifting out of his lithe frame as he brightly expounded upon several tangents on historical runic languages and cross-referenced myths throughout countless Earth cultures.

  
Palis did her best to listen, promising herself she’d commit these things to paper later.

  
“Still unconvinced, Shiny.”

  
“-I’ll buy you breakfast?”

  
“You've already accounted for convincing me, haven't you?”

  
A sheepish smile, "guilty."

  
Then Palis was dead serious, “greasy diner food?” _‘That I’m not allowed to eat,’_ went unspoken.

  
Julian nodded his assent.

  
Palis sighed, face in her hands, “fine.”

  
She dressed in the dark, tossing on what she's affectionately come to think of as her adventuring clothes, tough pants that survived her mother’s closet purges, a pair of boots and her grandfather’s old, hooded survival jacket before completing the ensemble with a very practical backpack. “Fill me in on the way?” she requested as she wrestled her dark hair into a pony-tail on their way out of her studio apartment.

  
“Well, the first sigils have roots in Old Norse, and they-”

  
Eventually, sometime on that near-empty shuttle to Prague and between bites of Greasy Breakfast Burrito #4, Palis asked, “do you really think we’ll find her?”

  
The look Julian gave could almost be described as pithy, “yes.”

  
“You sure she didn’t-?”

  
“Move on?” Julian voice grew pitchy, he's bristling, “she didn’t, she _wouldn’t_ ,” then he paused, countenance deflating a bit, “at least, not without saying goodbye.”

  
That... Was a little more emotional honesty that Palis had energy enough to deal with this early in the morning, and in retrospect she'd kick herself later for responding with a mere, “’kay.”  
  
Afterwards the silence stretched from seconds, to minutes, until roughly an hour later the couple finally stepped off the shuttle.

  
"I have to find her," he said as Palis slipped a hand into his.

_  
Compromise is key to any positively functioning relationship._

  
"I know," she said blearily as they turned off the road, into the darkened woodland and onto an increasingly overgrown footpath, "lay on Macduff."

  
To Palis, Julian’s impromptu dissertation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth served as a comforting white noise against the loud, ambiance of the city as they traveled.

  
It was 2:52 A.M. in New Prague, the city in full, nightlife bustle as one Julian and Palis, walked down, down, down to another graveyard.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did my best to edit well, but if ya'll find errors go right ahead and point them out. That’s all I got for now, ‘kay, byyyyye!


End file.
